To Flash or Not to Flash

Introduction:

Flash is cool. It is a great way to add some spice to your website. You can animate images and text, it is great for banner ads, and creating a picture gallery (just to name a few).



For those who don’t know, Flash is a program that allows you to create animation and place it in a file that browsers ( with the help of Flash Media Player) can download and play without any action of the user.

When Flash first came out, it was all the craze. Many individuals and companies created full websites in Flash. It enabled websites to be a cross between a TV commercial and a glossy magazine. It is interesting to note that when Flash was at its height, far fewer people had high-speed access, and some sites would take ages to download.

I have written this article not to discourage people from using Flash on their websites; in fact in certain situations I encourage it. I like to mention, however, a few things to think about when deciding whether to use flash on your site and how much.

Flash Media Player and Version:

In order for any Flash file to be executed, (downloaded and played) the user has to have the Flash Media Player installed on their computer. This player is free and most browsers have made it close to fully automatic to install. Furthermore it takes up very little space on the user’s computer.

Some people, however, refuse to download any type of executable file for fear of being infected by a virus or worm. Those users who are less experienced internet users and who are not trusting of Flash just might refuse to download the player, which means they will not be able to, or may not want to view your site. And some people don’t like the ‘flashiness’ of Flash and just want to get the information they came to your site for.

Even if you have small flash files on your site with the rest basic HTML, the perceived threat still may be enough to put them off your site. When trying to gain popularity on the internet, this is not a good thing.

So how do you have Flash on your site and still not put off some users? The answer is to have a back up of still images and/or web pages as an alternative. Your developer can write code to detect whether the user has the Flash player, and if not, redirect them to an alternative image or web page. This will ensure that the user still can see a beautiful site and obtain the information or products you are supplying.

Furthermore, you need to make sure that your web developer creates a Flash file that is back version compatible. For example, if the developer is using version 8 of Flash, make sure that previous flash media player versions are able to open it. This is because not everyone updates their software on a regular basis and software versions seem to come out more than I change socks (which is everyday by the way).

Download Time:

Despite the fact that a large number of internet users are now on high-speed, a full Flash site with lots of images, music, and video or animation, can still take a long time to download. In a current study done by a company named Akamai, it found that if your web pages do not open up within four seconds, you can kiss that user goodbye, especially if you have an e-commerce site. This may be a little extreme, but I have been to Flash sites that took up to 10-20 seconds just to start the intro page, and I have high-speed. There are only a few websites I will wait that long to view.

There are a couple of solutions for this. First, don’t make an entire web page in Flash. Trust me, you can still create a polished looking site, and have the animation, video and sound without creating a page totally in Flash.

Second, make sure your developer ensures the flash file is the smallest size it can be without reducing the quality too much.

Browser Compatibility:

Browser compatibility is also an issue. There is nothing worse than spending thousands of dollars on a sleek Flash site, and then trying to open it up in Opera or Firefox only to find out it doesn’t work properly, or even at all. Yes, Internet Explorer is still the most used web browser, but others are becoming more popular (especially Firefox). I have heard reports that 15 to 20% of users world wide now use Firefox.



Ensure that your web developer writes his/her own code that will not only play your Flash files in all of the browsers and in various versions, but will conceivably work in the future. Don’t let your developer settle for the standard ‘embed’ tag.

Search Engine Optimization:

Many people will find your products or services through a search engine such as Google. For Google to know what your site is all about and to be able to list all of your pages, it needs to get to all of them on your site. The one thing search engines can’t do is search inside a Flash file. So if you have an entire site in Flash, or your links are in the file, these search engines will not be able to list your pages or read your content. That means that your ranking on these search engines will be poor.

The best way to resolve this is to ensure that all of your links are outside of the Flash files in plain old HTML. A good developer will know this and ensure that your site is developed to allow search engines easy access to your links and content.

Conclusion:

So by all means, use Flash, but use it sparingly, with alternatives, and ensure that it will play in all conditions. The majority of internet users are still using the web for information and not for entertainment. Create a ‘wow’ site with the help of Flash, but make sure that your Flash use does not over power your message or product. Even worse make sure it doesn’t prevent your message or product from being told at all.



To Flash or Not to Flash - To learn more about this author, visit Kevin Virtue's Website.

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